WATCH: A Burnaby Mountain restaurant is now out of business because of the ongoing anti-pipeline demonstrations. And as Jennifer Palma reports, 60 people are out of work.
Shelley Langdon is one of 60 employees at Burnaby Mountain’s Horizon Restaurant who don’t know when they’ll return to work – or if they’ll have a job to return to.
“It’s a hard go with restaurants these days. You run very tight margins. You can’t be shut down for two weeks and not see some kind of an effect. I’m fearful for my job,” she said.
Dozens of people have been arrested on Burnaby Mountain since Thursday, when the RCMP began enforcing a court injunction ordering protesters to clear a pair of work sites, where Kinder Morgan is conducting drilling and survey work related to the proposed expansion of its Trans Mountain pipeline.
READ MORE: Arrests made on Burnaby Mountain for fourth straight day
Centennial Way is the road that connects the restaurant and lookout to the rest of Burnaby, but it’s been closed to vehicle traffic by RCMP for safety reasons.
“We simply cannot allow vehicle traffic to safely operate on that road with so many pedestrians at the scene. It just isn’t safe for the public or for our police officers,” the RCMP said in a statement.
Management at Horizon say they’ve cancelled 600 reservations so far. They’ve been in touch with Kinder Morgan about the situation, but haven’t come to any agreement as of yet.
Meanwhile, Horizon employees have told Global News they aren’t being paid and aren’t sure when they’ll be able to return to work.
“We just want them to open it up,” said Langdon.
“If we have to stop and say ‘hey, working at the restaurant’, or ‘hey, I’ve got a 8:30 reservation’, whatever.”
“We just want to access the road.”
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